


The Hidden Purl

by kikiduck



Category: Backstreet Boys, NSYNC, Popslash
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Coffee Shops & Cafés, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Knitting, M/M, Wedding Planning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-08
Updated: 2015-07-08
Packaged: 2018-04-08 07:24:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,226
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4295847
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kikiduck/pseuds/kikiduck
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Brian had been poking holes in his bike tires. One little hole, every couple weeks, and then he would walk the tire the half-mile into town and buy a new tube from the guy who ran the little bike shop on Pacific Avenue.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Hidden Purl

**Author's Note:**

  * For [strippedhalo](https://archiveofourown.org/users/strippedhalo/gifts).



Ever since he had moved to Sunset Rock that February, Brian had been poking holes in his bike tires. One little hole, every couple weeks, and then he would walk the tire the half-mile into town and buy a new tube from the guy who ran the little bike shop on Pacific Avenue.

The shop was named Mike n' Bikes, an oh-so-clever play on the candy name, but the guy who ran the shop was named Nick. Brian had been hopelessly crushing on Nick since the previous year, when they accidentally made out after the pride parade. They had both been drunk at the time, but as soon as they sobered up, Nick went back to his hot fireman boyfriend, and Brian resigned himself to a life of puncturing bike tires with nails. 

"You get a lot of flat tires," Nick finally pointed out after Brian's tenth replacement. "Maybe you should pay closer attention to what you're riding over."

Brian spit out an explanation involving Kevin's junk collecting habits; something about how it led to more nails and pieces of metal in the yard around their house, and Nick nodded like that made sense, which had to be the first time any part of Kevin's junk collecting made any sense. 

Nick always replaced the tube for Brian. He would lift the tire up on the workbench behind the counter and Brian would watch Nick's shoulder and hands and as Nick's hair flopped forward every time he bent over to make sure everything was lined up properly. 

In June, a couple weeks before Sunset Rock's annual Pride parade, Nick started coming into Willits Coffee Roasters, the coffee shop where Brian worked. The first time, Brian was so surprised he dropped the plate with AJ's bagel on it, and the bagel rolled away, under the edge of the counter.

Kevin was sitting on a stool behind the cash register, reading the latest issue of The Seagull, Sunset Rock's weekly newspaper. Kevin liked to stay informed about local politics. "Hey, Nick, don't usually see you in here!"

Nick scrunched his face up. "Lance is swearing off caffeine, so apparently we can't have it in the house at all. He does wheatgrass shots in the morning now. It's disgusting."

"Are you going to get me another bagel?" AJ asked Brian. 

"Hey, do you guys still do that knitting night at JC's?" Kevin asked Nick. "Brian, you should go to that."

"I don't knit." Brian pointed out.

"We can teach you." Nick said, taking his paper cup of coffee from Kevin. "It'd be cool to have a new person. You should come."

AJ stood at the counter, thoughtfully chewing a piece of bagel as he watched Nick leave and jaywalk across the street. "He slept with you, didn't he?"

Brian frowned and busied himself wiping down the counter. AJ's job as editor-in-chief of The Seagull must have made him exceptionally observant. 

"Of course he's tried, but I promised Kristin I wouldn't," Kevin said absently, flipping a newspaper page. "Brian, I'm serious. You should go knit something. You should get out of the house more. Meet some people." 

Kevin had been saying this since February. Apparently his solution to getting dumped and being newly out was to just get out of the house more and meet some people. Brian wasn't convinced it worked that way. 

"Yeah," AJ agreed. "You should do it. Lance doesn't knit."

Brian stopped scrubbing the counter and looked up at AJ, who just smirked at him and took his bagel back to his corner table. If Nick was there and Lance wasn't, Brian was in.

It was a small group that met every Wednesday evening in the back room of The Hidden Purl, the yarn store owned by JC Chasez. Until Brian joined the group, the regulars were JC and his partner Joey, Nick, AJ, and Howie Dorough. Howie was the closest thing Sunset Rock had to a real estate mogul. He owned several rental homes around town and leased out some store fronts along Pacific Avenue. He was also the head of the chamber of commerce and the mayor. Brian had a feeling that Kevin didn't know Howie was part of the knitting group. If Kevin had known, he never would have suggested Brian join. 

Once a popular summer destination for gay Oregonians in the 1970s, Sunset Rock was now home to artists and a few hippie holdouts who had moved to the coast from Eugene. The town survived on the tourism that the art galleries lining Pacific Avenue brought in, but still held a pride parade every June, and The Hidden Purl had a rainbow flag decal on the front window, as did most of the other businesses in town. Inside, it was bright and cheerful. The ceiling was high and painted ice blue. The walls were lined with white cubby holes filled with rainbows of yarn. JC usually played music quietly on the CD player behind the front desk. It was Brian's favorite place in town, especially when the weather turned in fall and everything outside was gray.

The back of the store was a room for classes and groups, with a large wood table set up on one side, and a group of mismatched soft armchairs and an overstuffed sofa clustered around a giant rag rug and a coffee table with ornately carved claw feet. This was where the knitting group met each week.

JC and Joey had been planning a commitment ceremony for the better part of the year. More accurately, JC had been planning and Joey had been nodding along and then rolling his eyes whenever he was out of JC's line of sight. JC had been hoping business would have been good enough over the summer to justify booking their ideal venue in Portland, but it hadn't been, and now in November, he was revising plans to save money wherever he could.

"Those are nice, right?" He was sitting cross-legged next to Joey on the overstuffed sofa. He held a magazine page up for inspection. 

Joey was in the middle of knitting through a piece of lacework, so he waited until he reached his next stitch marker before looking. "Sure. I bet Kevin could dig up some glass jars for you for cheap too." He consulted the chart on his pattern and continued on. Joey liked knitting intricate little projects, like socks with lots of detail, lace-weight scarves and wraps, or anything with lots of color work. Brian had barely managed to knit his way through a basic scarf in one color, he wasn't going to be ready for any of Joey's projects for a long time. 

AJ only knit blankets. Truthfully, as long as Brian had been attending, it had been the same blanket. AJ would have been farther along if he spent more time knitting and less time talking. This week, he started with the usual complaining about the residents of Sunset Rock.

"Lynn stopped me in the street yesterday," AJ told Nick. "She thinks I should write a feature about Justin and all the amazing things he's doing in the local Sacramento theater scene."

"Aww," Nick said. "Justin was my first, uh, stairwell rendezvous in high school."

"Ewww!" AJ said indignantly. "I could have gone my entire life without knowing that, Nick."

Having reached his Justin tolerance for the evening, AJ moved on to the big November storm that was slated to come onshore in the next twenty four hours. 

"I should probably go," Nick said around nine o'clock. "I want to surf before work tomorrow." The water temperature off the Oregon Coast wasn't exactly ideal for surfing, but that didn't stop Nick and a few other die-hards from encasing themselves in neoprene and hitting the waves anyway. Even Kevin thought they were crazy, and Kevin's bar for crazy was set pretty high.

"Dude," AJ said indignantly. "Did you not hear a word I've been saying? There's a storm coming in tomorrow."

"I know, the waves'll be awesome." Nick said. He wadded up his latest project, a chunky scarf with a twisted cable down the middle. "Storm waves are the best."

"Storm waves are the best," AJ repeated thoughtfully. "Can I use that as an ending for the memorial article I get to write when you never come back to shore?"

"Sure," Nick said, grinning at Brian. 

AJ frowned, not pleased with the lack of respect Nick was showing the weather report. "Nick, this is supposed to be the biggest storm since 1962."

Nick snorted. "Come on, AJ. They always say it's going to be as bad as 1962, and you know what? It never is, because if it was, then they'd be saying it'll be as bad as that year."

"He has a point there." Howie said, without looking up from his sock.

"Don't encourage him." AJ warned. "950 millibar low off the coast right now, Nick!" He called as Nick headed for the front door of the store. "Don't say I didn't warn you!"

Before he had started knitting, and before Nick had started ordering coffee every morning, Brian had deployed one other Nick-related scheme. He had started running. It was miserable torture, but it had given him an excuse to be on the beach every morning, and one other chance of possibly running into Nick. It hadn't been as reliable a plan as the flat bike tires. Some mornings, Nick didn't surf. If the waves weren't good enough, or if he had to be at work earlier, or just decided to sleep in that day, Brian wouldn't see him at all. Some days, Nick would be there, but with Lance. Some days, Nick would be out in the water when Brian ran past. 

The morning before the storm arrived, the wind had already picked up to uncomfortable levels when Brian hopped down the steps to the beach and head towards the water. The waves were bigger than usual, impressively large and white, and about half a mile up the beach, Brian saw a group of three or four surfers, including Nick, sitting on his surfboard just off shore. Nick raised his arm and waved at Brian, and he waved in return. Brian didn't see Lance. 

Brian's usual route took him along the beach until he reached the public access point at the north end of town, where he followed the sidewalk back up to the highway, and then he took the highway back into town. Highway was a generous term. Along this stretch of the coast, it was a two lane road with a speed limit of 35 miles an hour. There was a wide gravel shoulder on each side, and more houses closer in towards town. Howie's house was on the west side of the highway, just before the turn off that became Pacific Avenue. It was always easy to spot Howie's house because of the carved animals in the yard and lining the shoulder of the road. 

Howie's partner, Chris, carved the figures with a chainsaw. He was particularly fond of carving bears, and there were bears climbing trees, bears sitting, bears standing and waving, bears in overalls, bears holding welcome signs, and so forth. 

Brian slowed as he approached the house. There was a lone figure standing alongside the road, next to the waving bear. There was only one person who would be standing outside Howie's house that early in the morning, holding a sign on a stick. 

"Hey, Kevin," Brian said, stopping next to his cousin. Kevin was wearing a rumpled heavy plaid shirt, no jacket, and faded jeans. He seemed unfazed by the light drizzle falling and the gust of wind whipping his long hair out of his ponytail. "What're you doing?"

"I'm exercising my First Amendment rights," Kevin announced, waving his sign in the air. "Did you hear what that bastard is planning now?" 

"That bastard" was Howie. Kevin frequently disagreed with Howie's politics, and regularly wrote letters to the editor of The Gull and showed up at meetings at City Hall to tell Howie exactly how wrong he was. 

Brian looked at Kevin's sign. One side said SAVE SEAGULL PARK in careful block lettering. The other side was harder to read from Brian's angle, but said something about Christmas and light pollution. "He's destroying the park?" Brian guessed. “With a holiday light display?”

Kevin scowled at Brian, like he wasn't taking this seriously enough. "He's not destroying it, Brian. He's renaming it. That park has been called Seagull Park since this town was founded. And Howie's just gonna go barging in there, changing things , because he think it'll be better for marketing or some shit like that. He has no appreciation for the history of this town."

Brian tucked his hands further into the pockets of his jacket and jumped up and down to try and stay warm. The wind was still picking up, and Kevin tightened his grip when a gust threatened to rip his sign from his hands. "I don't know," Brian said. "There are a lot of things in this town named after seagulls. Maybe it's a good idea to mix it up a bit."

In addition to the park, the local newspaper was named The Gull, Denise McLean had a cottage named Seagull's Nest, and the cross street that ran up to the park entrance was named Seagull Drive. AJ claimed it was because when the founders of the town started naming things, they just looked around and used the first thing they saw. Sunset, Rock, Seagull, Pacific, Seagull, Beach, Seagull. 

"You're right, let's just fuck history for the sake of variety." Kevin scoffed. 

Brian rolled his eyes. Kevin had been an attorney before he quit his job in corporate law to move to Oregon and create art. The problem with art was it left no outlet for Kevin's love of arguing. "Aren't you cold?" Brian asked, jumping up and down a gain. 

"Injustice doesn't stop for cold weather." Kevin informed him. “And neither do I.”

"Is Howie even home?" Brian wondered. 

"Oh, he's home." Kevin nodded. "i've been here since six in the morning. I would have seen him leave."

"You're crazy," Brian said, for what had to be the hundredth time. 

"Like a fox." Kevin agreed. 

"No, just plain crazy." Brian corrected. 

The front door of the house opened and Chris stepped out, wearing heavy canvas pants, work boots and a waterproof jacket. "Hey, Howie!" He yelled back through the open door. "Your protester is out here again!" 

Chris came down to the side of the road and started wrestling with one of the waving bears, slowly rolling it back towards the house. "Kevin, you want to help me move these before the wind picks up?"

Kevin shook his head. "I'm not touchin' your creepy bears." 

The creepy bears were another of Kevin's favorite subjects to rant about. Brian needed to make his escape now while he still had a chance. "I'm gonna go. You have fun with your protest." 

"You bet I will," Kevin said grimly, watching Chris move another bear. 

By noon, the wind had picked up enough that it had blown Kevin's sign out of his hands and across the highway twice. Since Howie had already left for City Hall, and Chris had finished moving his sculptures and gone back inside, Kevin finally gave up and came back to the coffee shop in time to help Brian and Kristin take down the awning that usually hung above the outdoor tables. Brian had already moved the wire tables and chairs inside. The rest of the businesses along Pacific Avenue were doing the same, pulling in flower pots and benches and taking down swinging signs. Nick and Lance were moving the row of bicycles that were usually lined up in front of Mike N' Bikes inside. 

The power went out shortly after that, and AJ snapped his laptop closed and stood up from his corner table. "Well, that's all she wrote, folks. You going home or to City Hall? They have a generator."

"Like hell I'm going to City Hall," Kevin said. So Kristin and Brian walked home with Kevin. They spent the night camped out around the wood stove in the living room. Inspired by the fire he built in the stove, Kevin told a lengthy story about a night he spent in the woods as a Boy Scout. Brian didn't really listen. Kevin's Boy Scout stories were always boring. There were no encounters with wildlife, just a description of how Kevin arranged his fire pit and constructed a makeshift shelter. With the house shaking every time a wind gust hit or a tree fell, Brian didn't really sleep. The next morning, there was still a breeze, but nothing like the previous night. The fruit trees behind Kevin's house were still standing. There were six foot evergreen branches down all around the house, but the only real damage was to the old garage Kevin used as a studio. A fifty foot evergreen had split the building cleanly down the middle. 

"Well, that sucks," Kevin said when he saw it. "I had a project in there I was still working on."

There were fewer trees in town to fall, so the damage along the main street was mostly limited to broken windows and the Methodist church finally losing its steeple. Brian left Kristin and Kevin checking the coffee shop and ran into AJ snapping pictures of the fallen steeple in the middle of Seagull Drive. "Not that surprising," AJ told Brian. "It was damaged a couple years ago, and they didn't have the money to completely repair it. We all knew was coming down in the next big storm." 

The worst hit in town was The Hidden Purl. A power pole had fallen on the corner of the building, and a branch from one of the trees in the park had smashed through a front window. "It's pretty bad, I guess." Nick told Brian a couple days later, when they were clearing branches and trees off Kevin's property. "They have to get the building fixed, and a bunch of the yarn got ruined.”

Brian had lost any affection he had gained for Sunset Rock during the summer. It technically wasn't even winter yet, and it was miserable. They were still waiting for power to be restored, word was that the highway was still blocked farther up the coast, he had just spent an afternoon in the cold and rain pulling tree branches away from the house and driveway. So what if Kevin was the only family still speaking to him at the moment, there had to be a better place to live than this. 

Chris and Lance had climbed up on top of Kevin's crushed studio, and were beginning to cut the tree apart. "Kevin, what do you want me to do with it?" Chris called down. "If you don't want it, I'll take it."

"Oh, no," Brian said, realizing where this exchange was headed. "Creepy bears."

"What?" Nick asked, confused.

"I'm not giving you my tree." Kevin folded his arms. "If you think I'll just give you a tree to turn into a creepy bear, well then, you have another think coming, mister."

"Who picks a fight with a guy holding a chainsaw?" Nick asked. "That seems like a bad idea."

Kevin invited Nick and Lance to Thanksgiving, but not Howie or Chris. Not only was Chris banned from having Kevin’s trees, he was banned from having Kevin’s turkey. Lance was called into work at the last minute, leaving eight people at Kevin and Kristin’s dining room table with the addition of JC, Joey, AJ and his mother. 

"Insurance covered most of it," Joey told Kristin as they wrestled the giant turkey from the pan onto a platter. Kevin had been kicked out of the kitchen for his dictatorial behavior regarding the stuffing, and Joey was now on turkey moving duty. "And the rest comes out of savings."

"I thought that was your wedding money," Nick said. He had no assigned job in the kitchen, he was just there to try and eat the food before it reached the dining room. He had stolen a half empty bag of marshmallows off the counter when Kristin wasn't looking and was passing them back and forth with Brian under the kitchen table. There was a certain camaraderie in this act that Brian found more appealing than he knew he should.

Joey shrugged. "It was. So, we postpone things for a while. It's not the end of the world."

"Is JC okay with that?" Brian asked.

"He cast on a 500 stitch heirloom lace shawl last night," Joey said.

"What does that mean?" Kristin asked.

"It means no, he's not okay with it," Nick explained.

"Nick, I can see you guys passing that bag of marshmallows back and forth," Kristin said.

Nick froze, then glanced from Brian to Kristin and back again. "I don't know what you're talking about."

Kevin started serving mulled wine shortly after that, and everyone forgot about the marshmallows. In fact, the marshmallows were the last thing Brian really remembered when he woke up the next morning, naked, with Nick on the other side of his bed. This was the worst Thanksgiving hangover he'd ever had. This was the only Thanksgiving hangover he'd ever had. He sat there for a minute, watching Nick. This was definitely not good. He had to stop throwing himself at Nick as soon as either of them had alcohol. "Brian, this is not good," he said out loud.

"What?" Nick opened his eyes. "Ow. It's so bright!" He pulled his pillow back over his face. "What happened?" He asked, his voice muffled. 

"Do you really want me to tell you?" Brian asked.

Nick finally sat up, still shielding his eyes with one hand. "Did Kevin make us do shots last night?"

Brian nodded. Kevin had made everyone except AJ do tequila shots, claiming it was a Thanksgiving tradition started by the Pilgrims. 

"That doesn't even make sense," Nick said, half to himself. "How would Pilgrims get tequila?"

Brian chewed on his lip. Nick wasn't the sharpest knife in the drawer. It just made Brian like him even more. There was something appealing about seeing his mind trying to make sense out of things. 

"I've got to stop doing doing this," Brian said. "I'm sorry I keep getting drunk and trying to have sex with you."

Nick laughed. "You don't have to apologize for it." He fished his clothes off the floor and started to get dressed. 

"I kind of think I do. You have a boyfriend." Brian said. 

Nick finished pulling his sweater over his head and stared at Brian, clearly confused. "I don't have a boyfriend," he said. "Oh, Lance? He's not my boyfriend."

"What?" Brian said stupidly. 

"He's like, a roommate," Nick said. "A hot fireman roommate that I have sex with sometimes. I could never date him."

"What?" Brian repeated. Maybe he was still drunk and this was all a bizarre Thanksgiving tequila hallucination. 

"He's obsessed with nutrition and working out," Nick said. "And he thinks Journey is a terrible band. And he's a bossy roommate. The only reason I put him with him is because he's at the firehouse half the time anyway."

"Wow." Brian said. He wasn't sure what else to say. His mind was still stuck at the "hot roommate I have sex with sometimes" part of Nick's explanation.

"Anyway," Nick shrugged. "I should probably get to work. See you at JC's next week."

Brian sat on the end of the bed and thought about the new Nick developments for a while. When that didn't help, he put his pants back on and went downstairs. Kevin was sitting at the kitchen table, eating a turkey sandwich. "Mornin'," he greeted Brian. "Want some turkey?"

Brian sat down across from Kevin and gently rested his head on top of the table. "Turkey won't help me."

"It's pretty good," Kevin said around a mouthful of sandwich.

"Lance isn't Nick's boyfriend." Brian said.

"Huh," Kevin said. "Where'd you hear that?"

"Nick told me."

The room was silent after that, except for the sound of Kevin's contemplative chewing. It was like having a turkey eating cow in the kitchen.

"What am I supposed to do now?" Brian asked.

"Well," Kevin said. "I'd have some turkey, and then I'd go tell Nick you want to be his boyfriend."

Brian went with a slightly different approach. He hid in the house for the better part of the week, finally venturing out to The Hidden Purl the following Tuesday, after Kevin threatened to make him come along on a "reclamation run" to Newport. Brian wasn't about to go dumpster diving with Kevin. The Hidden Purl was almost back to normal, with just some final repairs to the outside of the roof still waiting. In the meantime, JC had gone into full-on Christmas mode, with twinkle lights around the front windows, paper snowflakes, and a Christmas window display complete with a tiny tree and lights. Inside the store, there was a second, larger tree in the back room, decorated with crocheted popcorn and cranberry strings, and tiny knit sweaters and hats. "Joey made them during his tiny things phase," JC explained when he saw Brian looking at the yarn popcorn and cranberries. "He spent all of summer break making popcorn pieces a couple years ago."

The project JC was working on was only a few rows long, but based on the number of stitches, Brian assumed it was the lacework project Joey had mentioned at Christmas. "I knit about three rows a day," JC held it up so Brian could see. "At this rate, I'll finish it right around the same time we have enough money saved to try our wedding again." Joey was right, JC was definitely not okay with having to wait.

The bell on the front door jangled and AJ burst into the store, the camera he used for The Gull clutched in his hands. He stopped in the doorway between the store proper and the back room and held onto the doorjamb, wheezing. "I was... just at the... grocery store," he finally managed to get out. 

"You ran here from the grocery store and you're that out of breath?" JC asked. "That's less than two blocks. Maybe you should cut back on the smoking."

"Don't tell me... how to live..." AJ took a deep breath and revised his earlier sentence to something shorter. "Fuck you."

JC smiled and continued knitting. 

"I'm here because you will not believe what I just saw in the grocery store parking lot," AJ announced. "Except you will, because I have it on camera." He held the camera up in the air. "Nick and Lance just broke up, and I have photographic proof."

"Oh my god, that's awesome!" JC said. "I mean, for you, Brian."

"What do you mean, they broke up?" Brian asked. AJ flopped onto the couch next to him and showed him the series of pictures on the digital camera display. Nick and Lance holding grocery bags in the parking lot, next to Lance's Jeep. Lance and Nick yelling. Lance throwing bags of groceries on the ground. Lance throwing something that looked like a bag of flour. Nick throwing bananas at Lance. The bananas missing Lance completely and landing in front of an elderly tourist walking into the store. Nick dumping the rest of the bag of flour on Lance's head. 

"It's the biggest food fight we've had in Sunset Rock in at least... six years," AJ said. "This is front page material, right here."

"How much do you hate your job, AJ?" JC asked.

"More than you'll ever know," AJ retorted without missing a beat. "But, great news for you, Brian!"

"Not really," Brian said. "Turns out Lance isn't Nick's boyfriend. He told me at Thanksgiving. Apparently he's just the really hot roommate that Nick has sex with."

"Huh," AJ said. 

"That's what Kevin said." Brian agreed. "I don't know if roommates with benefits is better than boyfriends or not."

AJ scrolled through the series of photos again. "Okay, if they're not breaking up, then I don't understand what is happening. It's like they're just having a stupid fight over a bag of flour."

"That's weird," JC said. "About the roommate thing, I mean. Okay, about the food fight too. You know who we should ask about this?"

"Why are you telling me this?" Kristin asked, once AJ was done showing her the food fight sequence.

"Because there are important questions to be answered here," AJ said. "Like why are they fighting about flour?"

"And why did Nick let me think he was dating Lance until last month?" Brian added.

"Also, that." AJ agreed.

"I'm not touching the whole flour thing," Kristin said. "You're on your own with that, AJ. As for you, Brian, there are multiple reasons Nick didn't tell you, but knowing Nick Carter, I think the most likely one is that he's just an idiot."

"She's right. He is," AJ nodded. His phone vibrated in his pocket and he jumped. It was followed by Brian's text message beep, and the sound of Kristin's phone buzzing against her desk in the coffee roasting room. 

"TOP SECRET MEETING AT KEVIN'S TONIGHT. 8." AJ read aloud, in a fake shout to emphasize the caps. Brian's phone displayed the same message from Nick. 

"At Kevin's?" Kristin asked. "Why doesn't he ever tell me these things?"

Nick had invited Howie and Chris to the top secret meeting too. Kevin kept hovering behind them, like he expected to have to stage a protest in his own living room at any moment. 

"You probably know that JC and I had to cancel our ceremony after the damage to the store last month," Joey said. "It's going to take us a few years to save up enough money to have the same ceremony in Portland, so I was talking to Nick the other day about an idea I had. I want to surprise JC with a ceremony here in town on Christmas Eve. If we could pull together something really cool, I think he'd like it even more than what he was originally planning."

"I think we should yarn bomb all the trees in Kevin's orchard," Nick had come up with an elaborate plan. "It'll be perfect. JC loves yarn, and he loves Christmas, and we can decorate Kevin's house and it'll be the coolest wedding a yarn store owner's ever had."

"What do you mean, decorate my house?" Kevin asked. "With what?"

"Christmas lights," Nick said. "Your house would look cool with lots of lights."

"No," Kevin said firmly. "You will not put Christmas lights on my house."

Howie rolled his eyes. "He's just saying that because he spent two weeks protesting the holiday lights display for Pacific Avenue."

"Exactly," Kevin nodded. "Thank you, Howie. I have principles."

"You can decorate the house, Nick." Kristin offered.

"Baby!" Kevin said indignantly. "I think we need to talk about this!"

"Quit being an asshole, honey," Kristin said sweetly. 

Nick had a plan for getting the trees yarn bombed too. Realizing that there wasn't enough time for just their group to knit enough to cover all the trees, he enlisted AJ's help in crowd sourcing the project. Nick had complied a list of e-mail addresses for yarn stores in Oregon. AJ downed two cups of coffee, settled down in his corner of the coffee shop and composed a message to them. 

"Hi! We're a knitting group in Sunset Rock, and we're hoping you can help us pull off a yarny surprise for our local yarn shop owner. His partner is planning a surprise commitment ceremony this Christmas. As part of the surprise, we're hoping to yarn bomb several fruit trees for decoration. Since we couldn't possible knit enough fabric to cover these trees, we're hoping any knitters or knitting groups in your area would be willing to donate their time and yarn and help us out. If you can't contribute to the trees, but think you could help us another way, let us know! 

If you can help with the trees, let us know and we'll send you more info about what sizes we need. 

Please help us spread the word. Thanks!"

"It's crazy," Nick told Brian a week later, as they sewed pieces of knit fabric around the trunks of the apple trees. "AJ's received over 200 e-mails from knitters offering to help us. This one store in California is sending us their sample blankets so the guests can use them during the ceremony. A group in Ohio is sending us 140 knit flowers to attach to the trees. There's even knitters in Eugene that volunteered to come out here for the day and help assemble the pieces on trees. They've been sending AJ letters and pictures. He's going to compile them and print it all off as a scrapbook."

"That's really cool," Brian said. He was impressed that Nick was coordinating all of this, but that didn't change the fact that they still hadn't talked about the whole Lance situation. Now it had been long enough that it would be weird if Brian just brought it up again. 

"What?" NIck asked, and Brian realized he had probably been staring. 

"Um, nothing." Brian said. "Wait, can I ask you something?"

"Yeah." Nick's tongue was sticking out of his mouth as he concentrated on sewing up the side of the tree. 

"What happened with Lance in the grocery store parking lot?" Brian asked. That hadn't been exactly what he had been planning to ask, but it was sort of in the same ballpark. Maybe he could work up to the big questions. 

Nick sighed. "Lance was mad because I bought white flour instead of whole wheat, and we had a stupid fight about it. And then AJ put it on the front page of The Gull because he's an asshole." He laughed. "It was a pretty funny picture of Lance though." Nick finished the piece he was working on and cut his sewing yarn. "Hand me another striped one."

Brian handed him another piece. "He really got that mad about flour?"

Nick scrunched his nose up. "Well, no. We'd been fighting before that. I told him I thought we shouldn't have sex anymore."

"Really?" Brian said in surprise.

"We started fighting because he thought setting up this ceremony outside in December was stupid, and then I told him I wasn't going to sleep with him anymore, and then he got mad about the flour, so I threw bananas at him. Bananas are really hard to throw. They're like a football."

"This isn't a stupid idea, Nick." Brian said, more strongly than he meant to. "This is really good idea."

"Okay, I didn't say I wasn't going to sleep with him because of that," Nick admitted. "I said that because of you."

"What?" Brian asked.

Nick stopped sewing and looked at Brian. "I'm not an idiot, Brian. I know no one can get that many flat tires."

The morning of Christmas Eve, it was bright and clear, with the only rain clouds in sight far out over the ocean. The bright colors on the trees stood out against the thin layer of clouds covering the sky and the washed out winter trees and grass around them. There were chairs set up for the guests in the orchard, with blankets to keep the chill off. They had set up a table at the back with coffee and hot chocolate and extra hats and mittens in case anyone needed them. When Joey and JC arrived, everyone was seated and waiting. When JC saw the trees and their family and friends, he spent close to five minutes alternating between jumping up and down and twirling. 

Howie officiated the ceremony, and Kevin spent most of it sniffling quietly into the blanket on his lap. Kevin had always been a crier. Afterwards, as the sun was setting and it was too cold to stay outside, they moved inside to Kevin's living room, where AJ and Chris vied to see who could come up with the most ridiculous song from Kevin's CD collection, and Kevin took over as bartender. 

The couch had been shoved all the way to one side of the room to make room for the makeshift dance floor. Brian was sitting on the couch, and Nick sat down next to him, leaning over so Brian could hear him over the music. "I've got an idea. We should try, you know," he nudged Brian with his knee in a way that was supposed to be suggestive, "without being drunk for once."

"That sounds like a plan," Brian agreed. When Nick leaned over and kissed Brian, AJ noticed from the other side of the room and almost tripped over his own feet trying to get JC's attention. 

"Hey guys, it's time for traditional Christmas cranberry vodka shots," Kevin said.

"Traditional?" Brian raised his eyebrows at Kevin.

"Yep," Kevin nodded. "Same vodka Santa drinks at the North Pole."

Nick looked like he was considering this. At least vodka at the North Pole made marginally more sense than tequila drinking Pilgrims.

"Yeah," Brian said. "I think we're going to pass."


End file.
